NORMAN — There were a lot of things Oklahoma did well Tuesday night. But there was a threshold it wasn’t able to cross in its 77-65 loss to No. 6 Baylor at Lloyd Noble Center.
That threshold was one the Sooners have struggled with all season. It was simply a matter of getting some defensive stops. Like many of the Sooners’ losses this season, they didn’t get them when they need them.
The Bears shot 54 percent (27-for-50). It’s nearly impossible to win a Big 12 Conference game when the opponent makes more than it misses. The Sooners (12-7, 2-5 Big 12) are now 0-4 when that happens.
A good time to start getting them would have been with a little less than 5 minutes to go. OU never led, but Cameron Clark buried a jumper to cut the Bears’ lead to 62-60.
Another stop would have give the Sooners a chance to tie or take the lead. Instead, the Bears (18-2, 5-2) built the lead back up to four on Perry Jones III’s put-back. Jones, who finished with a game-high 21 points, added another layup 30 seconds later.
It was the story of the night.
“We made two or three runs and Baylor did a good job responding to those runs,” OU coach Lon Kruger said. “I like what our guys are doing from a standpoint of competing and getting after it, but we have to figure out ways to get some stops.”
The Bears were 9-for-18 from 3-point range. Baylor point guard Pierre Jackson added 16 points and Quincy Acy added 13.
The Sooners shot 46.6 percent (27-for-58), but were just 3-for-12 from long distance. Steven Pledger sank all three of OU’s threes en route to a team-high 17 points.
Romero Osby finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds. All but four of his points came in the second half. Andrew Fitzgerald finished with 13 points.
It was as simple as OU getting close, but not close enough.
Baylor led by as many as 10 points in the first half, but OU cut to five (35-30) by halftime. The Bears were up by 13 with 14 minutes left, but the Sooners whittled it down with a 19-8 run over the next 10 minutes.
Clark’s jumper put the crowd of 5,667 into a frenzy. Lloyd Noble Center was as loud as it’s been all season. One more stop and it would have gotten louder and OU might have been in position for its first win over a top 10 opponent in two years.
“Like coach said, you need stops,” Osby said. “You’ve got a team as talented as they are and you’ve got guys on the floor as talented as they are, you can’t give them second chances. You’ve got to limit them to one shot, really be physical.”
OU was exactly that for lengthy stretches. Just not long enough Tuesday night.
John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com
“We didn’t cover them like we had to to beat a top 10 team,” Kruger said.
